When the Title is Gone

by Meredith Sage Kendall

For the past two decades I’ve had a few titles that have made me feel important. The first was Executive Director/Founder for a nonprofit and the latest was Church planter/Pastor’s wife. Those titles are now past tense.

Even though I knew it was time for the nonprofit to close down, it wasn’t just a title it was my identity, and the same for the church plant. Even though I was excited for a change and this new chapter, when I turned the page and it was blank… the paralysis set in. My husband even became worried, because he saw I was floundering.

I started to use my quiet time to ask God what was next. He didn’t answer me the way I wanted but nevertheless He did show me where I got off on my priorities, years ago.

I spent the past twenty years with titles given by the world, even though I was working for God. I am now realizing how much of who I was, was caught up in what I did.

I devoted myself, time and energy to every other person, place and thing because that is where I found my self-worth. Please hear me, there is nothing wrong with working and or having a title, it was my misplaced identity.

Recently I have been seeing the same message in different circumstances. That theme is, “your identity is to be found in who God says you are”.

My life verse is Ephesians 2:10

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago. (NLT)

For years I have stood on the part that I was to do the good things He planned for me long ago. I misplaced that job, and found it in a title. My job first and foremost was to be a child of God. My job as His masterpiece was to glorify Him and make Him known. I clearly messed that up when my own children questioned why God would have me spend all day everyday caring for others, when they clearly didn’t care about the sacrifice I was making with my own children.

For years I made the excuse that this was a calling on my life, when in reality when the titles were gone, I realized it was just only another idol I had placed in my life under the guise of doing the things He planned for me long ago.